Why Originality is Wildly Unpopular (According to Neuroscience)
When we think of the word “originality,” we think of the act of creation.
If you’re religious, maybe that makes you think of an anthropomorphic person in the sky who created the clouds and the stars and the seas. If you’re not, maybe it makes you think of planting a garden, quilting or painting a masterpiece. Whatever it is, “originality” feels like the act of making something from nothing, of pulling out ideas from the ether of this world to make something seemingly unworldly.
With those kind of stakes, it makes sense that so many people feel liberated by the phrase, “There are no original ideas. Everyone just steals.”
When I hear this, there’s a little tinge in my heart. I want to stop the conversation and bring up all the latest research on the neuroscience of creativity, but that would take a while. So I’m using this as an opportunity to do that — for two reasons.
Number one — We are humans. If we weren’t all in some way creative, how have we even invented what we have at this point? How have we gone from radio to wearable devices that ping at us, scanning our heart rate and interrupting our sleep?
Number two — It sucks that people think they need a magical DNA elixir to think creatively. Everyone deserves to make a new world for themselves.
So here’s the logic:
It starts with 1785.
Maybe you remember this Law of Conservation of Mass from grade school — “Matter is neither created nor destroyed.” Thank you, Antoine Lavoisier, for changing the entire 19th century and helping further rid us of ideas like alchemy and the 4 Humours, even though they were metaphorically fascinating notions.
The idea that “ideas” are magical derives from this dated way of thinking. We are centuries from those worlds. If matter does not come out of thin air, why should our ideas? Why can’t it be deeply original that our ideas are actually a cultivation of existing matter—our otherwise useless BA in Anthropology, our grandmother’s plants, the show we just watched on Netflix? We’ve put work into the cultivation—can’t we acknowledge that?
Maybe we’re not gods creating Brand New Things, but we can find a unique and original combination of ideas within the specific context of our lives. No magic, just fusion. A curiosity about what happens when you mix A with C and put it in front of B for the first time in history.
Originality is anti-status quo.
In recent years, neuroscientists continue to investigate the twin stars of creativity and originality — and it’s still puzzling them. But they have at least identified our mind’s two frames of thinking — divergent and convergent. Or, to rename them — rebellious and empathetic (oh hey, a casual mention of our internal Black Sheep agency values)
They’ve found that originality grows the more we walk away from our “existing thinking system” (or society’s expectations at large). Why? Because originality is wildly unpopular! The first time a truly original notion is out in the world, most people reject it because it feels risky, new and absurd. Being original is about shaking up the expectations of yourself and everyone around you (!)
They’ve also found that in order for creativity to work, we have to think about how it applies to our real life. It has to actually fit into our existing world so that it can be applied — solving problems and changing how we see things. All so that, 100 years from now, we can say things like “there are no original ideas” when it comes to spaceships going to Mars.
Originality is not built on the arts alone.
From Edward Wilson’s The Origins of Creativity to Brandt and Eagleman’s The Runaway Species, we’re seeing that creativity is unlocked through association. Imagine your brain going from left side to right side and back as it works through its most rebellious and empathetic thoughts.
Or in other words, “Creative people bend, blend and break the world's cultural archive.” - Dan Jones, Nature (International peer-reviewed research journal)
Frank Gehry couldn’t have created world-changing architecture without bending and warping the socially expected lines of a building into curves.
Pablo Picasso couldn’t have created Guernica without breaking the mold through fragmentation and reassembly.
We see these things, now, as things that have been “done before” — but they weren’t when they first arrived. When they first arrived they were a stunning response to a war-torn modern world (Picasso) and vision of a modernist future (Gehry).
Originality is inherently disruptive, rebellious and ever curious.
It’s not an amulet. It’s the courage to oppose and the insight to see how that opposition can change what we see in front of us.
Or as they say during the prayer that guides the descent to Mars in Away, “Let us discover a world beyond fear.”